Modern architecture is a broad term given to a number of building styles with similar characteristics, primarily the simplification of form and the elimination of ornament, that first arose around 1900. By the 1940s these styles had been consolidated and identified as the International Style and became the dominant way of building for several decades in the twentieth century. 1900 is a common year starting on Monday. ... // Events and trends The 1940s were dominated by World War II, the most destructive armed conflict in history. ... International style can refer to International style in ballroom dancing - see ballroom dance; International style in architecture - see international style. ... (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar (often from (1900 to 1999 in common usage). ...

The exact characteristics and origins of modern architecture are still open to interpretation and debate, but it's generally accepted that modernism was superseded by postmodernism and is now regarded as a historical style. Post-modernist architecture rejects the rigid geometricity of modernist design in favour of radical, often asymmetrical, forms Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or...

Origins

Some historians see the evolution of modern architecture as a social matter, closely tied to the project of Modernity and hence to the Enlightenment, a result of social and political revolutions. Modernity is a term used to describe the condition of being Modern. Since the term Modern is used to describe a wide range of periods, modernity must be taken in context. ... ...

Others see modern architecture as primarily driven by technological and engineering developments, and it's plainly true that the availability of new materials such as iron, steel, concrete and glass drove the invention of new building techniques as part of the Industrial Revolution. The Crystal Palace by Joseph Paxton at the Great Exhibition of 1851 is an early example; possibly the best example is Louis Sullivan's development of the tall steel skyscraper in Chicago around 1890. General Name, Symbol, Number iron, Fe, 26 Chemical series transition metals Group, Period, Block 8, 4, d Appearance lustrous metallic with a grayish tinge Atomic mass 55. ... // Steel is a metal alloy whose major component is iron, with carbon being the primary alloying material. ... This article is about the construction material. ... The materials definition of a glass is a uniform amorphous solid material, usually produced when a suitably viscous molten material cools very rapidly, thereby not giving enough time for a regular crystal lattice to form. ... The Industrial Revolution was the major technological, socioeconomic and cultural change in the late 18th and early 19th century resulting from the replacement of an economy based on manual labor to one dominated by industry and machine manufacture. ... The facade of the original Crystal Palace side view of the Crystal Palace A huge iron and glass building, The Crystal Palace was one of the wonders of 19th Century Britain, if not the world. ... Sir Joseph Paxton (1803–1865) was an English gardener and architect of The Crystal Palace. ... The Great Exhibition was an international exhibition held in Hyde Park London, from 1 May to 15 October 1851 and the first in a series of Worlds Fair exhibitions of culture and industry that were to be a popular 19th century feature. ... 1852 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Louis Sullivan Louis Henry (Henri) Sullivan (September 3, 1856 - April 14, 1924) was an American architect, called the father of modernism, considered by many as the creator of the Prairie School of architecture, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, and a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright. ... Chicago (officially named the City of Chicago) is the third largest city in the United States (after New York City and Los Angeles), with an official population of 2,896,016, as of the 2000 census. ... 1890 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ...

Other historians regard modernism as a matter of taste, a reaction against Eclectism and the lavish stylistic excesses of Victorian Era and Edwardian Art Nouveau. Queen Victoria (shown here on the morning of her Accession to the Throne, June 20, 1837) gave her name to the historic era. ... The Edwardian period or Edwardian era in the United Kingdom is the period 1901 to 1910, the reign of King Edward VII. It is sometimes extended to include the period to the start of World War I in 1914 or even the end of the war in 1918. ... Alfons Mucha, lithographed poster Dancel (1898). ...

Whatever the cause, around 1900 a number of architects around the world began developing new architectural solutions to integrate traditional precedents (Gothic, for instance) with new technological possibilities. The work of Louis Sullivan in Chicago, Victor Horta in Brussels, Antoni Gaudi in Barcelona, Otto Wagner in Vienna and Charles Rennie Mackintosh in Glasgow, among many others, can be seen as a common struggle between old and new. 1900 is a common year starting on Monday. ... Notre-Dame Cathedral seen from the River Seine. ... Louis Sullivan Louis Henry (Henri) Sullivan (September 3, 1856 - April 14, 1924) was an American architect, called the father of modernism, considered by many as the creator of the Prairie School of architecture, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, and a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright. ... Victor Horta (1861 - 1947) was an architect famous for working in the Art Nouveau style. ... Antoni Gaud i Cornet (more widely known in the English speaking world under the Spanish version of his first name, as Antonio Gaud , or, just simply, Gaudi), (25 June 1852–10 June 1926) was a Catalan architect famous for his unique designs expressing sculptural and individualistic qualities. ... Charles Mackintoshs Scotland Street school in Glasgow Charles Rennie Mackintosh (1868 - 1928) was a Scottish architect, designer, and watercolourist who was a designer in the Arts and Crafts Movement and also the main exponent of Art Nouveau in Scotland. ...

Modernism as dominant style

By the 1920s the most important figures in modern architecture had established their reputations. The big three are commonly recognized as Le Corbusier in France, and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Walter Gropius in Germany. Mies van der Rohe and Gropius were both directors of the Bauhaus, one of a number of European schools and associations concerned with reconciling craft tradition and industrial technology. Sometimes referred to as the Jazz Age or primarily in North America as the Roaring Twenties. // Events and trends Technology John T. Thompson invents Thompson submachine gun, also known as Tommy gun John Logie Baird invents the first working television system (1925) Charles Lindbergh becomes the first person to fly... Notre Dame du Haut Le Corbusier (October 6, 1887–August 27, 1965) was a Swiss architect famous for what is now called the International Style, along with Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Walter Gropius, and Theo van Doesburg. ... Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies) (March 27, 1886 - August 17, 1969) was an architect and designer. ... Walter Adolph Gropius (May 18, 1883 – July 5, 1969) was a German architect and founder of Bauhaus. ... The Bauhaus Bauhaus is the common term for the Staatliches Bauhaus, an art and architecture school in Germany that operated from 1919 to 1933, and for the approach to design that it developed and taught. ...

Frank Lloyd Wright's career parallels and influences the work of the European modernists, particularly via the Wasmuth Portfolio, but he refused to be categorized with them. Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was one of the most prominent architects of the first half of the 20th century. ... The Wasmuth portfolio (named after the German publisher), was one of Frank Lloyd Wrights first published works. ...

In 1932 came the important MOMA exhibition, the International Exhibition of Modern Architecture, curated by Philip Johnson. Johnson and collaborator Henry-Russell Hitchcock drew together many distinct threads and trends, identified them as stylistically similar and having a common purpose, and consolidated them into the International Style. 1932 is a leap year starting on a Friday. ... General Electric GE90-115B fanblade, on display at MOMA. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan in New York City. ... Philip Cortelyou Johnson (July 8, 1906 (Cleveland, Ohio) – January 25, 2005 (New Canaan, Connecticut)) was an influential American architect. ... International style can refer to International style in ballroom dancing - see ballroom dance; International style in architecture - see international style. ...

This was an important turning point. With World War II the important figures of the Bauhaus fled to the United States, to Chicago, to the Harvard Graduate School of Design, and to Black Mountain College. Modernism became the pre-eminent, and then (for leaders of the profession) the only acceptable, design solution from about 1932 to about 1984. World War II was a truly global conflict with many facets: immense human suffering, fierce indoctrinations, and the use of new, extremely devastating weapons like the atom bomb. ... The Bauhaus Bauhaus is the common term for the Staatliches Bauhaus, an art and architecture school in Germany that operated from 1919 to 1933, and for the approach to design that it developed and taught. ... Harvard Graduate School of Design The Harvard Graduate School of Design is a graduate school at Harvard University offering degrees in Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Planning and Design. ... From the time of its founding by John Rice in 1933, Black Mountain College, located near Asheville, North Carolina, was known as one of the leading progressive schools of art in the United States. ...

Architects who worked in the international style wanted to break with architectural tradition and design simple, unornamented buildings. The most commonly used materials are glass for the facade, steel for exterior support, and concrete for the floors and interior supports; floor plans were functional and logical. The style became most evident in the design of skyscrapers. Perhaps its most famous/notorious manifestations include the United Nations headquarters, the Seagram Building, and Lever House by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, all in New York. The United Nations, or UN, is an international organization established in 1945 and now made up of 191 states. ... The Seagram Building is a skyscraper in New York City. ... Lever House, by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill on Park Avenue in New York City, is the quintessential and seminal glass box International Style skyscraper. ... The architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP (SOM) was formed in Chicago in 1936 by Louis Skidmore and Nathaniel Owings; in 1939 they were joined by John Merrill. ...

Detractors of the international style claim that its stark, uncompromisingly rectangular geometry is dehumanising. Le Corbusier once described buildings as "machines for living", but people are not machines and do not want to live in machines. Even Philip Johnson admitted he was "bored with the box." Since the early 1980s many architects have deliberately sought to move away from strictly geometrical designs.

Although there is much discussion as to when the fall of the modern movement occurred, criticism of Modern architecture began in the 1960s on the grounds that it was universal, sterile, elitist and lacked meaning. The rise of postmodernism is attributed to the general disenchantment with Modern architecture. Post-modernist architecture rejects the rigid geometricity of modernist design in favour of radical, often asymmetrical, forms Postmodernism is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or...

Characteristics

Modern architecture is usually characterised by:

• a rejection of historical styles as a source of architectural form (historicism)
• an adoption of the principle that the materials and functional requirements determine the result
• an adoption of the machine aesthetic
• a rejection of ornament
• a simplification of form and elimination of unnecessary detail
• an adoption of expressed structure

Some catchphrases of Modern architecture

• "Form follows function" - first used by sculptor Horatio Greenough, more popularly by Louis Sullivan
• "Less is more" - Mies van der Rohe
• "Less is more only when more is too much" - Frank Lloyd Wright
• "Less is a bore" - Robert Venturi, pioneer of Postmodern Architecture; in response to the featureless International Style popularized by Mies van der Rohe

In his 1941 essay "The mischievous analogy" (collected in Heavenly Mansions) the architectural historian Sir John Summerson identified several generalizations and clichés of modern architecture: Form follows function is a slogan and principle of Modern architecture, including specifically: Adolf Loos The Bauhaus The Prairie Houses Horatio Greenough Louis Sullivan The Modernist Movement It is meant to suggest that architecture should let the physical characteristics necessary to creating a structure dominate in its appearance, rather than... Horatio Greenough (September 6, 1805 - December 18, 1852) was an American sculptor. ... Louis Sullivan Louis Henry (Henri) Sullivan (September 3, 1856 - April 14, 1924) was an American architect, called the father of modernism, considered by many as the creator of the Prairie School of architecture, was an influential architect and critic of the Chicago School, and a mentor to Frank Lloyd Wright. ... Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (born Maria Ludwig Michael Mies) (March 27, 1886 - August 17, 1969) was an architect and designer. ... Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was one of the most prominent architects of the first half of the 20th century. ... Robert Venturi (June 25, 1925 -) is a Philadelphia-based architect who worked under Eero Saarinen and Louis Kahn before forming his own firm with John Rauch. ... International style can refer to International style in ballroom dancing - see ballroom dance; International style in architecture - see international style. ... Sir John Newenham Summerson (1904-1902) was one of the leading British architectural historians of the 20th century. ...

• it arises from an accurate analysis of the needs of modern society;
• it represents the logical solution of the problem of shelter
• achieved by the direct application of means to ends;
• it expresses the spirit of the machine age;
• it is the architecture of industrial living;
• it is based on a study of scientific resources and an exploitation of new materials;
• finally it is organic

Summerson found that the modernist obsession was not with architecture itself, but with its relation to other aspects of life, and investigated the results.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has more media related to:

Modern architecture

• form follows function
• Le Corbusier
• Louis Kahn
• Iranian Architecture
• Philip Johnson
• Adolf Loos
• Mid-century modern
• Louis Sullivan